The
Los Angeles Superior Court’s Executive Committee is expected to adopt a modified
version of the court closure proposal made public last month when it meets
today, a senior prosecutor said yesterday.

Under
a compromise negotiated by the District Attorney’s Office and the court’s
security director, the same three courthouses and two court lockups would be
closed, but the displaced criminal caseloads would be distributed differently.

Deputy
District Attorney John Spillane, head of branch and area operations for the
region that includes Huntington Park,
said he met on “a couple of occasions” with court Director of Security Cecil
Mills, a retired judge, to discuss the compromise. Mills agreed to propose it
to the Executive Committee, Spillane said.

Huntington
Park Cases

The
compromise affects mainly the criminal caseload of the Huntington
Park courthouse. The lockups at that
courthouse and the Malibu
courthouse would be closed under the cost-cutting proposal, while the South
Gate, Monrovia
and Culver City
courthouses would be closed completely.

The
court’s original proposal had been to move the Huntington
Park felony caseload to the downtown
Metropolitan Courthouse and the misdemeanor cases to the East
Los Angeles courthouse. Spillane
said he and Mills reached an agreement under which felony and misdemeanor cases
from the same geographic areas will be redistributed to the same courthouses,
reducing the burden on prosecutors and local arresting agencies.

Under
the compromise agreement:

•Cases
from Bell Gardens,
Bell
and South Gate
would go to the Downey
courthouse.

•Cases
arising from arrests in the Vernon,
Maywood/Cudahy and East Los Angeles California Highway Patrol jurisdictions
would be assigned to the East Los Angeles
courthouse.

•Cases
from Huntington Park
would go to the Metropolitan Courthouse.

•Cases
arising from arrests made by deputies from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s
Department’s Norwalk/LaMirada Station would be assigned to the Bellflower
courthouse.

•Cases
currently being heard at the Malibu
courthouse would be assigned to the Van Nuys courthouse.

The
court’s original proposal called for the Malibu cases to be divided, with those
involving arrests made by deputies from the Los Hills sheriff’s station to be
sent to Van Nuys if the arrest was made north of Mulholland Drive but to the
Airport courthouse if the arrest was made south of Mulholland Drive.

Geographic
Basis

Spillane
said he did not expect the Executive Committee to “tinker” with the elements of
the compromise proposal dealing with the Huntington
Park caseload. He added he was less sure
about the outcome of the suggested charge in redistribution of the Malibu
cases.

Under
the compromise proposal, “felonies and misdemeanors from the cities stay
together,” Spillane explained, obviating the need for local police to travel to
multiple courthouses. The compromise also keeps cases closer to the cities and
regions in which the crimes occurred, he said.

Court
officials could not be reached yesterday for comment on the compromise, details
of which were contained in a letter sent by Chief Deputy District Attorney Curt
Livesay to Assistant Presiding Judge William A. MacLaughlin last week. Livesay
had sent a letter to MacLaughlin on April 29 calling the division of felony and
misdemeanor cases “unwarranted” and a “disservice to a segment of the community
which has been historically underserved.”

The
earlier letter also said the District Attorney’s Office was “disappointed” it
had not been invited to provide input before the original proposal was
announced.

The court has estimated the projected
savings from the closures and related security upgrades at more than $4
million.